Sri Lankan Army on Thursday admitted that two of its soldiers may have been involved in the rape of a 42-year-old Tamil woman near Kodikamam in the Jaffna peninsula on July 7. The army had earlier denied that any of its personnel were involved and alleged that LTTE infiltrators could have committed the crime to discredit the armed forces. However, following the investigations, it appears that two soldiers in question could have been involved in the incident at Kodikamam, the army said in a release in Colombo. The army, the release said, conducted investigations in keeping with its policy of not tolerating offences of this nature.
Military authorities handed over the suspects to the police for further investigation after extensive interrogation was carried out to ascertain the truth, it said.
The July 7 incident came a day after the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern provinces observed a general shutdown in protest against a gangrape by policemen manning a Colombo checkpoint on June 24. Three policemen and three soldiers have been arrested in this incident. Bureau Report